Thinking leads to philosophy. It is the dimension of mere thinking. It does not lead to experience. There is a lot of walking in it but one reaches nowhere. There are many conclusions but never the ultimate conclusion that brings the solution in life. This is only natural. Even the most perfect thinking process about water cannot quench one’s smallest thirst. The path to quench one’s thirst is quite different. By thinking you can attain intellectual conclusions, while through meditation you attain spiritual experience. One is like thinking about water; the other, like quenching one’s thirst. One is still part of the problem; the other is the solution.
Lao Tzu asks everyone this question: Do you want to know light or to know about light? Do you want to know truth or do you want to know about truth? Do you want to know about water or do you want to quench your thirst? Your answer to these questions will decide whether you are thirsty for knowing or for collecting information.
Somebody is a painter, somebody is a poet, somebody is a scientist, and somebody is a sculptor. They all have their own uniqueness. It does not matter what you do, all that matters is that everything you do has your fingerprint on it, and you have become a creator. There is no reason to compare. A painter is a painter and a poet is a poet. It is stupid that both start comparing. Then the painter becomes inferior because he is not a poet, and the poet becomes inferior because he is not a painter. And we have been living under this inferiority complex for thousands of years. So everybody is suffering -- "Existence has not been compassionate towards me." Yes,keep yourself intelligent, meditative, and silent. Keep yourself alert, aware. Change every stone on the path into a stepping-stone. Don't think, "Now the stone is blocking the way." No stone blocks the way. You just have to know that every stone can be turned into a stepping-stone.
Perfect virtue produces nothing, because when you are perfectly virtuous nothing is needed. When you are perfectly virtuous there is no desire, there is no motivation. You are perfect. How can perfection move? Only imperfection moves. Only imperfection desires to produce something. So a perfect artist never paints a picture, and a perfect musician throws away his instrument. A perfect archer breaks his bow and throws it away, and a perfect man like Buddha is absolutely useless. What has Buddha produced -- poetry, a sculpture, a painting, a society? He seems to be absolutely unproductive, he has done nothing. There are two types of mind in the world: the mind of those who dominate -- the male mind, and the mind of those who like to be dominated -- the female mind. By female I don't mean women, or by male, men. There are women who have masculine minds and there are men who have feminine minds. They are not always the same. These are the two types of mind: one which likes to dominate and one which likes to be dominated. In both ways ego is fulfilled because whether you dominate or are dominated YOU are important. If someone dominates you, then too you are important, because his domination depends on you. Without you, where will he be? Without you, where will his kingdom be, his domination, his possession? Without you, he will be nobody. The enlightened man is always a rebel, but not socially, politically, economically, only existentially. He is a transformed man. He knows his own being and he knows his being's splendor. He is no more on any power trip, because he could not have more power than is blossoming within his own self. He is not afraid of death because he knows that death is a fiction. Awakening to your buddhahood, all that is false disappears, just like when you bring a lamp into a dark room -- the darkness disappears. You don't say that the darkness has gone away, because nothing goes. The darkness was never there in fact; there was only an absence -- the absence of light. The moment you bring light in, of course, the absence of light cannot remain. Nothing has gone out, only light has come in. As the buddha is awakened within you, it is not that delusion or darkness or hallucination disappears. Your buddha is awake, and all around, from infinity to infinity, there is only consciousness and nothing else.
The sense of continuity is held only by our memories. There is an analogy that illustrates this point. Scientists know that it takes a snail about three seconds to register light. So imagine that a snail was watching you, and that you left the room, robbed a bank, and came back in three seconds. As far as the snail was concerned, you never left the room. You could take her to court and she would provide a perfect alibi. For the snail, the time that you were gone from the room would fall into one of those gaps between the frames of flickering existence. Her sense of continuity, assuming snails have one, would simply not register the gap. So the sensory experience of all living beings is a purely artificial perceptual construct created in the imagination.
There is a Zen story in which two monks are looking at a flag that is waving in the wind. The first one says, "The flag is waving." The second one says, "No, the wind is moving." Their teacher comes over and they pose him the question. "Who's right? I say the flag is moving. He says the wind is moving." The teacher says, "You are both wrong. Only consciousness is moving." As consciousness moves, it imagines the world into existence.
So the mind is a field of energy and information. Every idea is also energy and information. You have imagined your physical body and the whole physical world into existence by perceiving energy soup as distinct physical entities. But where does the mind responsible for this imagination come from?
Twenty-one countries had banned Osho´s entry into their territory. Never had there been such an unarmed man... Just a word of truth creates fear in all those people who are living on lies.
Even the German parliament -- Osho had never asked to enter Germany -- without his asking, thinking that perhaps some day Osho may ask, had passed a law in the parliament that not only could Osho not enter into Germany, but his jet plane could not be refueled at any German airport, because Osho might corrupt their morality, their religion, their culture -- just in three weeks. A culture that has been propagated for two thousand years, a religion that has lived for two thousand years, was afraid of a single man. If your two thousand-year-old culture, morality, religion can be destroyed by a tourist in three weeks, then it is not worth having. At least one thousand letters were written to the American government when Osho was arrested there, from all kinds of prominent people around the world, condemning the criminal step of Ronald Reagan: arresting a man without any reason, without any arrest warrant. They had no evidence at all against Osho.
Osho never did go out of his room. Osho was not concerned with anybody's morality and religion and civilization.
All these things have not yet happened.
Man is still living in the darkness of the barbarious past.
I have read about a colonel who retired from military life. He called his orderly, whose name was Rama, and told him that he was to live with him. The colonel lived on his own, he had no wife or children, so he told Rama, "Your only duty will be to wake me up at four a.m. just as you have been doing all these years. For years you have come to me at four in the morning with the words, 'Wake up, sir, it's time for the parade.' All I want you to do from now on is to come to me at four in the morning and say, 'Wake up, sir, it's time for the parade.' And then I'll say to you, 'The parade can go to hell,' and I'll turn over and go back to sleep! This has been my lifelong desire which I have not been able to fulfill up to now. My whole life I wanted to skip the parade but could not do so. Now I am retired, so...."
Such is our mind. It wants to sleep, and when it is time to wake up, then we get even more pleasure from going on sleeping if we are given the chance. Now this colonel is insane, but he represents man truly. Now he can go on sleeping uninterrupted, there is no need to keep the orderly any more for waking him up at four in the morning. But the real interest is in someone making the effort to wake him up and his turning over and going on sleeping and ignoring him. This satisfaction is not possible even in the natural uninterrupted sleep.
How can you know health without knowing sickness? Where you have everything just by wishing for it, there cannot be any joy in having it. The joy of having something comes from the length of time you have been wanting it, expecting it. Happiness really lies in the expectation. So once you achieve it, it loses its charm for you. Every happiness is imaginary: so long as you don't possess it, it seems to be abounding happiness. But as soon as it is actualized, it ceases to be happiness; our hands are as empty as before. And then we seek some other object for our desire, and we begin to expect it again. We feel so unhappy without it and imagine that happiness will come with it.
It happened in Rome. George W. Bush -- or let us call him Reverend George W. Bush -- Comrade Putin and Pope Benedict XVI went for a morning walk. This little kid is sitting in front of his house playing, when Reverend George W. Bush comes to the child and says 'Hello, Bonny. What are you doing?' The little boy says 'Mixing shit with sand.' Somewhat taken aback, he says 'And what are you making?' The boy says 'George W. Bush.' This upsets George W. Bush very much, and he is standing on the side muttering to himself. Comrade Putin, seeing George W. Bush so pigged off, asks him 'What's going on?' 'Why' says Bush 'that rotten kid is sitting there mixing shit with sand and making a George W. Bush.' Deep down, Putin feels very happy and thinks 'The kid must be a communist!' But to George W. Bush he says 'Wait. I will go and talk to the kid.' He reaches the kid and says 'Tell me, boy, what are you doing?' 'Mixing shit with sand.' 'And what are you making?' 'Putin.' Now of course they both are pigged off and are standing on the side talking about how rotten that kid is. Then His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI asks them what the problem is. They explain just what has happened with the rotten kid. Pope Benedict XVI says to them 'Look guys, you gotta understand something about child psychology. I am older than you both -- and, by the way, I know more about urine and allied subjects than anybody else in the world. Let me go to the child.' Deep down he feels very happy that the child seems to be a follower of the policy of non-alignment -- neither for America nor for Russia: Neutrality. 'Now watch what happens when I go over to the kid.' So His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI walks over, he puffs out his chest as he always does and in a haughty way, as only a pope can walk, he walks over to the kid and says 'Hello, little boy. And just what are you doing?' 'Mixing shit with sand' comes the reply. 'I'll bet I know what you are making' says Pope Benedict XVI. 'I'll bet you are making a pope.' Oh no' says the boy sadly. 'I haven't got enough shit for that.'
In India people have lived for almost five thousand years with the same structure that Manu created. It may have been good in those days, must have been of some significance, but five thousand years have passed and still in India the untouchable exists. There are people who cannot even be touched; they are not human beings. The really orthodox will not even touch their shadows. It used to be so. It is still so in a few villages that when an untouchable, a SUDRA, passes on the street, he has to shout "Please get out of my way. I am coming" -- because if his shadow falls on somebody of the high caste, that will be a crime. He can be beaten, beaten to death! Still people are being burned for this crime, and this stupid structure has lived for five thousand years. So inhuman! So undemocratic! That's why in India it seems democracy cannot succeed: the whole Hindu mind is undemocratic. How can you succeed in creating a democratic country if the whole structure of the mind, the conditioning of the mind, is undemocratic? The basic fundamental of a democracy is that each man is equal; nobody has more value than the other -- but that is not acceptable to the Hindu. In fact, the SUDRA, the untouchable. cannot be counted as a human being. He has to be counted with animals, not with man. Women cannot be counted with men; she has also been counted with the animals. Now this type of mind -- how can it become democratic? So in the name of democracy there is only chaos and nothing else, because there are no foundations for democracy.
Unseren Verstand interessiert es viel weniger, die objektive Wirklichkeit zu erkennen, als an einer günstigen, bequemen, vor allem aber vertrauten Vorstellung festzuhalten. Zum Beispiel mag jemand vielleicht insgeheim schon länger den Verdacht gehabt haben, dass mit seiner Partnerschaft etwas nicht so ganz in Ordnung sei. Aber dann hat er den Gedanken immer wieder schnell beiseite geschoben und sich eingeredet, eigentlich sei doch alles wunderbar; denn sonst hätte er ja schließlich ein Problem und müsste sich selbst womöglich in Frage stellen, letztlich vielleicht sogar ändern. Da ist es natürlich weit bequemer, alle Indizien zu leugnen und sich einzureden, alles sei in Ordnung oder zumindest normal, weil es Nachbarn und Freunden ja schließlich auch nicht besser geht. Aber dann kommt der Tag, an dem er fassungslos die Wirklichkeit hinter seinen Bildern erkennt, an dem die schönen Paläste zusammenbrechen, in denen sich sein Ego so behaglich eingerichtet hat. Da muss er mit Schrecken feststellen, dass die Wirklichkeit ganz anders ist, als er sie sich immer ausgemalt hatte. Das ist im Tarot der Turm.
Dabei muss es sich nicht einmal um beglückende Vorstellungen handeln, an denen wir kleben. Wir können ebenso gut unter den Bildern leiden, die wir uns von der Wirklichkeit gemacht haben. So stellte der griechische Philosoph Epiktet schon vor 2000 Jahren fest, dass es nicht die Dinge sind, die uns beunruhigen, sondern die Meinungen, die wir von den Dingen haben. Sie können zu Zwangsvorstellungen werden, mit denen wir uns das Leben vergällen. Wenn das Ego sich zum Beispiel auf die fixe Idee versteift, Aufzüge seien gefährlich, dann wird der Betreffende bei jeder Liftfahrt zittern, in der festen Annahme, der Aufzug würde zumindest stecken bleiben, wenn nicht gar abstürzen. Früher oder später wird er natürlich beginnen, alle Lifte zu meiden und seinen Befürchtungen stets mehr Wahrheitsgehalt zurechnen als jedem noch so besonnenen Argument und allen Erfahrungswerten. Der Preis solcher Zwangsvorstellungen ist, neben einer immer schlimmer werdenden Einschränkung der Bewegungsfreiheit, auch ein zunehmendes Leiden am Leben. In diesen Fällen kann das große Arkanum Nr. 16, Der Turm, auch ein Schlüsselerlebnis bedeuten, den Geistesblitz, der uns den Durchbruch zur Freiheit ermöglicht.
Weil die Mauern des Turms uns hindern, das größere Ganze zu sehen, weil sie uns wie alle Grenzen von der All-Einheit trennen, müssen sie einstürzen. Das ist die Leerung des Bewusstseins, dessen Entkonditionierung und Reinigung von der Vergangenheit.
Wenn die Paläste zusammenbrechen, in denen es sich unser Ego bequem gemacht hatte, erkennen wir plötzlich die Wirklichkeit hinter unseren Bildern.
ONE WINTER DAY, A MASTERLESS SAMURAI CAME TO EISAI'S TEMPLE AND MADE AN APPEAL: 'I AM POOR AND SICK,' HE SAID, 'AND MY FAMILY IS DYING OF HUNGER. PLEASE HELP US, MASTER.' DEPENDENT AS HE WAS ON WIDOWS' MITES, EISAI'S LIFE WAS VERY AUSTERE, AND HE HAD NOTHING TO GIVE.
HE WAS ABOUT TO SEND THE SAMURAI OFF WHEN HE REMEMBERED THE IMAGE OF YAKUSHI-BUDDHA IN THE HALL. GOING UP TO IT HE TORE OFF ITS HALO AND GAVE IF TO THE SAMURAI. 'SELL THIS,' SAID EISAI, 'IT SHOULD TIDE YOU OVER.' THE BEWILDERED BUT DESPERATE SAMURAI TOOK THE HALO AND LEFT. 'MASTER!' CRIED ONE OF EISAI'S DISCIPLES, 'THAT'S SACRILEGE! HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING?' 'SACRILEGE? BAH! I HAVE MERELY PUT THE BUDDHA'S MIND, WHICH IS FULL OF LOVE AND MERCY, TO USE, SO TO SPEAK. INDEED, IF HE HIMSELF HAD HEARD THAT POOR SAMURAI HE WOULD HAVE CUT OFF A LIMB FOR HIM.'
A very simple story, but very significant. Even when you have nothing to give, look again. You will always find something to give. Even when you have nothing to give, you can always find something to give. It is a question of attitude. If you cannot give anything, at least you can smile; if you cannot give anything, at least you can sit with the person and hold his hand. It is not a question of giving something, it is a question of giving. This Eisai was a poor monk as Buddhist monks are. His life was very austere and he had nothing to give. Ordinarily, it is an absolute sacrilege to take the halo off Buddha's statue and give it away. No so-called religious person could think of it. Only somebody who is really religious would -- because compassion knows no rules, compassion is beyond rules. It is wild. It follows no formalities.
When you feel that you are inferior, when you compare yourself with others and see that they are superior to you, what will you do? The ego feels hurt -- you are inferior. You just cannot accept it, so you have to deceive yourself and others. How do you deceive? There are two ways. One way is to go mad -- you suddenly declare that you are superior, the most superior. Another way is to go politician. Either go mad or go politician. Through politics you cannot suddenly declare -- you have to prove that you really are the prime minister or the president. So it is the long way around. Madness is a shortcut to importance; politics is the long way. But they reach the same goal. And if the world is to become a sane, normal world, then two types of persons have to be cured: madmen and politicians. Both are ill. One has gone the long route round, one has taken the shortcut. And remember well that the madman is less harmful than the politician, because he simply declares his superiority, he doesn't bother to prove it; the politician bothers to prove it -- and the proof is very costly. What was Hitler trying to prove? That he was the most superior, the suprememost Aryan. It would have been better for the world if he had gone mad, used the shortcut; then there would have been no second world war. Politicians are more dangerous because they are madmen with proofs. They are madmen working, reaching, achieving a goal, just to hide the inferiority in them. Whenever somebody feels inferior, he has to prove or simply hypnotize himself into believing that he is not inferior.
Im mexikanischen Bundesstaat Guerrero wollen zahlreiche Bewohner des Dorfes Mezcala Ende Dezember ein intensiv leuchtendes, bislang unidentifiziertes Flugobjekt beobachtet haben. Dieses sei auch gelandet und habe mehr als 30 Stunden lang Lichtblitze von sich gegeben. Am 31. Dezember 2007 soll es zu dem bizarren Ereignis gekommen sein. Nahezu das ganze Dorf sowie zahlreiche Minenarbeiter der Los Filos Goldmine sollen das mysteriöse Objekt beobachtet haben. Die Augenzeugen berichteten, dass zudem zahlreiche Beobachter in ihren Autos entlang des Federal Highway angehalten hatten, um das intensive Licht zu beobachten, das teilweise in etwa 300 Metern Höhe über die Gegend geflogen sei. Die Zeugen beschrieben ein scheibenförmiges Objekt, das zuerst über den Dorfplatz geflogen sei, um dann leise am nahe gelegenen Hügel Pie de Minas zu landen. Dort habe es mehr als 30 Stunden verweilt und dabei merkwürdige Lichtblitze abgegeben. Bei vielen Augenzeugen stellten sich nach kurzer Zeit physische Beschwerden ein. Einige berichteten beispielsweise von Augenirritationen, obwohl sie das Objekt nur aus relativ großer Entfernung beobachtet hatten. Zudem soll es zu Stromausfällen in der direkten Umgebung gekommen sein - auch wenn der örtliche Stromversorger keine Spannungsschwankungen registrierte. Zahlreiche Zeugen machten Fotos und Videos von dem beobachteten Phänomen. Viele dieser Aufnahmen sollen jedoch kaum aussagekräftig sein. Andere seien merkwürdig verzerrt. Selbst Aufnahmen mit analogen Kameras seien allesamt überbelichtet. Die unbeeinträchtigten Aufnahmen wurden hingegen alle lediglich aus größerer Entfernung gemacht und geben somit ebenfalls kaum brauchbare Informationen wieder. Zeugen, die das Objekt mit Ferngläsern beobachtet haben wollen, beschreiben, dass sie im oder vor dem hellen Objekt eine Figur erkannt haben wollen, die sie wie eine Katze mit Hörnern beschrieben. Besonders diese Beobachtung sorgte unter den Anwohnern für große Angst. Angeblich soll es einer Gruppe von Jugendlichen gelungen sein, sich dem gelandeten Objekt bis auf 50 Meter zu nähern. Dann seien sowohl Autos als auch sämtliche Kameras und Videorekorder ausgefallen. Noch näher an das vermeintliche UFO herangekommen, wollen sie plötzlich metallische Geräusche aus dem Innern des Objekts gehört haben, bekamen es mit der Angst zu tun und liefen davon. Aufnahmen aus etwa einem Kilometer Entfernung zeigen ein rundes helles Objekt. Auf anderen Aufnahmen sollen sogar Symbole und das katzenartige gehörnte Wesen zu erkennen sein. Ein Suchtrupp des Sheriffs, der am darauf folgenden Tag den Landeplatz ausfindig machen wollte, fand keine Hinweise auf die beschriebenen Ereignisse. Von offizieller Seite heißt es, dass die Sichtung durch Spannungs-entladungen zwischen zwei Hochspannungskabeln erklärt werden könne. Die beschriebenen Details der Augen-zeugen zeichnen hingegen ein etwas anderes Bild der Ereignisse. In der Folge der Beobachtungen haben nun zahlreiche Anwohner aus Angst vor negativen Auswirkungen des gelandeten Objekts das Dorf verlassen. Jetzt hoffen mexikanische UFO-Forscher den Fall genauer untersuchen zu können und eventuell doch noch physische Spuren der möglichen UFO-Landung in dem unwegsamen Gelände zu finden.
Das Dojo ist der Ort “zum Erfahren des rechten Weges”. Damit ist ein Übungsraum gemeint, der die nötige Ruhe bietet, mit der sich der richtige Weg (Do) erlernen lässt. Ein Raum der Andacht und der Besinnung. Inhalt und Form bilden eine Einheit. Spaß und Freude im gegenseitigen Umgang, das Erfahren der eigenen Mitte sind wichtiger als das verbissene Einüben von Techniken. Vom Gegeneinander zum Miteinander. Durch die Verbindung mit der Natur lernen wir auch, verwurzelt zu sein mit der Erde und die Kraft des Baumes zu spüren. In der TCM (traditionellen chinesischen Medizin) heißt es: Sind Yin und Yang im Gleichgewicht, können krankheitsverursachende Einflüsse abgewehrt werden. Wenn der Mensch lernt, seinen Energiefluss zu lenken, bestimmt er selbst das Ausmass seiner Gesundheit. Wer sich zugesteht durchzuatmen, aufzuatmen, sich innerlich zu entspannen, dem haftet ein ”Hauch von Glückseligkeit” an, wie es das Lächeln eines Kindes ausdrückt.
Meditation moves inwards; prayer directs you outwards. That's why their dimensions are polar opposites. Prayer needs a God, an object. And you can have any kind of object. Hindus have thirty-three million gods. Why have just one, when you are going to imagine? Why be so miserly? Hindus have gods in abundance. You can choose, according to your liking, any kind of god. To outsiders it looks very strange, but they don't understand the psychology of prayer. It does not matter what you are praying, to whom your prayer is addressed. All that matters is that you should be concentrated. You can do the same just lying down looking at the light bulb without blinking your eyes, praying -- at least the light bulb is not your imagination, it is there -- and soon you will fall into a hypnotic trance. And when you wake up you will feel very refreshed, rejuvenated, livelier than ever, younger. So nothing is wrong as far as all these things are concerned. The problem is, if you think this is religio, this is spiritual growth, then you are falling into a very dangerous fallacy.
The Tao is the One, From the One come eval and apply; From these two, creative energy; From energy, infinitely many things; The forms of all computation.
All programming embodies eval And embraces apply, Through their union Achieving harmony.
What you call programming is not in harmony with nature: it is man made, it is a contrivance worked out in your conscious mind. When you try by means of this to crush the opponents positive impassioned attacking psyche, he is quick enough to detect any sign of psychic wavering which may go on in your mind, which is sure to interfere with acuteness of perception and agility of action, for then nature feels impeded in pursuing its original and spontaneous course of movement. To make nature display its mysterious way of-achieving things is to do away with all your own thinking, contriving, and acting. Let nature have her own way, let her act as it feels in you, and there will be no shadows, no signs, no traces whereby you can be caught; you have then no foes who can successfully resist you. I am not, however, going to say that all the discipline you have each so far gone through has been to no purpose. After all, the way expresses itself through its vessels. Technical contrivances hold the reason in them, the spiritual power is operative in the body, and when it is in harmony with nature it acts in perfect accord with environmental changes. When the yielding psyche is thus upheld it gives a stop to fighting on the physical plane of force and is able to stand even against rocks. But there is one most essential consideration which when neglected is sure to upset everything. This is: not to cherish even a speck of self-conscious thought. When this is present in your mind all your acts become self-willed, human-designed tricks, and are not in conformity with the way. It is then that people refuse to yield to your approach and come to set up a psyche of antagonism on their part. When you are in the state of mind known as 'mindlessness', you act in unison with nature without resorting at all to artificial contrivances.
